Case Cracked
by Vivid Escapist
Summary: Henry's wondering why everyone's been acting so strangely. Jo's wondering when all her colleagues became so immature. A bit of friendly competition disrupts the precinct status quo.


**A/N: This was written for the It's A Long Story ficathon, hosted by Tumblr user truthisademurelady.** **Check out Archive of Our Own for the rest of the collection!** **Fics are being posted through June 1st.**

 **I started this story back in January when Trivia Crack was still relevant, so it takes places around then. A couple weeks after Henry came back from leave. I would like to thank my pal pelicanshadows for his invaluable help as a real-time beta, and for donating half his Sunday night because I procrastinate everything.**

* * *

It started out as an accident. Jo was in the bullpen with Hanson and a couple of other detectives one morning, chatting and drinking coffee. Hanson was on his phone, playing that trivia game that everyone was obsessed with. As far as Jo could tell, most of the building had downloaded Trivia Crack, checking on games between files and challenging each other at lunch. Even Jo had caved and tried it, though she'd been too busy to play much so far.

"Detective, I have fantastic news!" Jo lifted her gaze to see Henry hurrying through the bullpen, scarf flapping over his shoulder. Jo side-eyed the clock on the wall; she'd only parted with Henry twenty minutes ago. That was too soon for him to have finished the autopsy on the body they'd picked up. At the scene, Henry had been babbling about some foreign shrub fibers found on the John Doe's clothes…Jo couldn't recall any specifics now, but she presumed that was why Henry was here.

"You solved the case already?" Jo's comment was laced with sarcasm, but Henry was too preoccupied to notice.

"Not yet, I'm afraid. But I have identified our victim. Those spores on the cuffs of his pants were—as I suspected—from the cacaotillo plant. It exists in only place on Earth."

Henry paused, face expectant. Jo knew he was waiting for her to take a guess. As much as he enjoyed his grand soliloquies, he liked even more to engage Jo in the process.

"Ah, Guam?"

"The Galapágos Islands! Specifically, the islands of Santa Cruz and San Cristobal. I had someone crosscheck flights between that area and New York in the past 48 hours for passengers matching our victim's description." Henry passed Jo the file he'd brought with him.

"One Paul Wegner. Lives in Queens."

"Well, lived," Henry corrected.

"Nice job. I would ask why you're an expert on South American plant species, but I know better by now."

Henry grinned at Jo, and was turning to return downstairs when Hanson mumbled to himself, "Why the hell would I know who invented peanut butter?" His eyes were still glued to the phone screen. With the attention Hanson gave to that trivia game, Jo was willing to bet he hadn't even noticed Henry was here. But that didn't stop him from answering.

"An excellent question! George Washington Carver is most commonly credited with the creation, although it truly dates all the way back to the Aztecs. They used to mash peanuts into a paste similar to the peanut butter of today…."

Hanson stared at Henry a few moments, pressed the answer on his phone, and promptly tuned the doctor out. The other members of the group exchanged enlightened glances. Jo could see the cogs turning.

"…patented in 1895 by Doctor John Kellogg—"

"Henry, I think that'll suffice."

He looked slightly disappointed to be interrupted, but honestly, Jo was doing them both a favor.

"Why don't you go finish the autopsy on Paul Wegner, and later we can go interview his wife?" Jo sounded like she were bargaining with a child. Half the time, with Henry, she felt like she was.

Henry nodded an agreement and left the bullpen. As soon as he was out of earshot, Jo turned to face the other four detectives.

"I know what you're all thinking. Don't."

"Aw, come on, Jo," Hanson chided. He won't know why we're asking him. What's the harm?  
Detective Perry—a brunette a few years younger than Jo—hummed her agreement. "The entertainment category he'd be hopeless at, and probably most sports. But there's probably not a single question on the others that Doctor Morgan doesn't know."

The rest of group was nodding. Jo was losing ground fast, yet she still couldn't believe her colleagues were immature enough to consider the idea in the first place.

"Really? How old are you? You can't use Henry just so you can get an advantage on that stupid trivia app!"

"What's this about an advantage?" Lucas, as usual, had chosen the absolute perfect time to walk by. He stopped in front of the detectives. "I've been beaten like twelve times today."

"Asking the Doc," Hanson supplied quite helpfully. Jo could've slapped him right there and then. Now they were spreading the idea to other departments.

"That's genius! Doctor Morgan knows, like, everything."

Jo interrupted before Hanson could say anything else. "Lucas, did you need something?"

"Nah, I just stopped in the break room." He waved a Three Musketeers bar. "Your vending machine has better snacks."

Jo tired her best to resist rolling her eyes. She failed miserably.

"Hey, you try the one downstairs," Lucas defended. "All we have right now is granola."

"Does anyone know the capital of Uzbekistan?" Hanson asked suddenly.

Detective Leheay scoffed. "Nah, man. Go ask your doctor. If you run, you might be able to catch  
him at the elevator."

Hanson peered over Lucas' shoulder, looking very much like he was considering it.

Jo wanted to throw her hands in the air. "You're ridiculous. I'm going to go do some actual work. Let me know how your careers in trivia go."

No one protested as she stormed off, electing instead to discuss amongst themselves possible applications of their new plan. Faintly, Jo could hear Perry sharing the group's epiphany with yet another new arrival. It was going to be a long week.

* * *

"...and Doctor Morgan just gave him the answer, no questions asked. He didn't even wonder why Mike was asking."

"Why would that matter?"

Hanson listened absently as Perry debriefed one of the rookie detectives. He had answered the Uzbekistan question wrong, of course, and was regretting his decision not to run after Henry.

"He'd probably be annoyed or something that we just want to know for a game. You've seen how passionate he is whenever he goes off on a monologue about something. It'll be easier just to let him think we're legitimately interested."

"And he probably wouldn't get it anyway," Leheay inserted. "The guy barely knows what a cell phone is. Good for him, I guess, but I doubt he would understand an app."

"Okay, okay," Hanson said. "Forget all that. That's talk logistics—how we're gonna do this exactly—because because I am not sprinting through the precinct to find the Doc in thirty seconds every time I get a question I don't know…"

* * *

Henry had been having quite the unusual week. He was well aware that he had a habit of launching into lectures about various nonessential topics. He also knew that it exasperated his coworkers endlessly, who did their best to abbreviate him.

But the past several days had shown the exact opposite. People were seeking him out to inquire about the history of Myanmar or the number of popes from the House of Borgia. He could hardly go ten minutes without Lucas poking into his office. Every time he walked through the building he was stopped at least half a dozen times by someone.

It was almost…refreshing.

Henry was exiting the morgue on his way to the elevator when he was ambushed again—this time by a young officer he'd never even seen before. The man skidded to a stop before him, cell phone clutched in one hand.

"Doctor Morgan, I caught you! I really need to know who was president under the Articles of Confederation." The young man's breaths were coming out in short, heavy bursts and he was dancing on his toes—clearly in a hurry.

"Did you sprint over here?"

"Um, yeah. Could you uh—"

"John Hanson.

The officer pressed the screen on his phone. He nodded to Henry, giving a grateful smile.

Now that Henry thought about it, every other person who had approached him had exhibited much the same behavior—if to a less obvious degree. Only Lucas—near as his workspace was to Henry's—hadn't been ready to jump out of his skin if Henry didn't spit the answer to his question out instantly.

"What is that you're doing?" Henry asked. He took a step forward, leaning to get a better look at the cell phone.

The man held the device close. "Nothing! Of importance, really. Just texting my friend; he wanted to know too."

Henry might have been a bit archaic in regards to technology, but he was fairly certain it took more than one press on a phone screen to type a message. Additionally, Henry had heard Lucas complain no less than a dozen times that the morgue had no cell phone "bars." Whatever that meant. But Henry knew you couldn't send messages without them.

All this deduction was rather excessive given the fact that the officer was a worse liar than Abe was as a preschooler. It was a good thing the man had decided to go into law enforcement instead of the other route.

Henry pretended to accept the officer's answer, letting him go on his way. But Henry's prying was far from over...this required further investigation.

* * *

The next day Lucas popped his head in Henry's office as usual, asking who had painted Paris Street; Rainy Day.

"Ah, that's a beautiful work." Henry inclined his head, pretending to be deep in thought. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Lucas' calm demeanor dissipate, one second at a time.

"Henri Rosseau, I believe. It's French."

"Um, Doc that's not one of the op—" Lucas stopped short. He bit his tongue, backpedaling, and simultaneously trying to cover the slip. "I mean, uhhh, are you sure?"

Henry let Lucas simmer a few seconds longer before relieving his poor assistant.

"It could also be Gustave Caillebotte."

Lucas went through the same motions as the officer had yesterday. Henry didn't bother explaining the significance of Caillebotte as both a young and active impressionist, or why Paris Street; Rainy Day was nowhere near the realm of Rousseau's style. Lucas had already moved on.

"Thanks for answering all these questions—totally learning a lot." Lucas tapped the side of his head and made a clicking sound, indicating his understanding. "Caillebotte. Got it."

Lucas' pronunciation of 'Caillebotte" could be described as butchered at best, but Henry could touch on that another time.

"Yes, why is it that you've been so curious lately, Lucas? The whole precinct, really." Henry made his tone light and innocent, as if he'd just casually noticed the behavior.

"Oh, uh. Just…you know…" Lucas started rubbing the back of his neck fervently. "No reason. I really should be getting back to work." He pointed out Henry's doorway with both hands, inching towards his desk. "I'd love to talk about it later, though. Or someone else could probably give you a better answer."

It was becoming apparent that a great number of Henry's colleagues were terrible liars. Henry did have more practice—having to keep his entire life story hidden on a daily basis from everyone short of Abe—but certainly Lucas could do better than that.

"Actually, I was just about to visit Detective Martinez." Henry stood up and followed Lucas out the doorway. "The results from Mr. Wegner's toxicology screening came back."

"That's a great idea!"

Lucas, it seemed, was too relieved to be off the hook to recall that they had debriefed the detective hours ago.

* * *

It didn't take much more snooping for Henry to figure out what was going on. He stopped by the precinct break room and peered around for something to make him look busy. The packets of tea caught his attention first. Lipton was completely undrinkable of course, but it would serve his purpose.

He fixed himself a cup, hovering nonchalantly within earshot of a group of detectives. He pretended to be quite engrossed with moving the tea bag around his cup, and no one from the group paid him more than a cursory glance. Luckily, they also didn't seemed concerned that Henry wasn't putting that tea anywhere near his mouth. (There were some things worse than death, after all.)

"See, Pete? Even with help, your chances of beating me at this game are zip to none."

"That's not fair. You work nine floors closer to…" Henry was facing the opposite direction—purposely—but he could feel eyes on his back. "Y'know. By the time I catch the elevator my time's half gone. The only chance I really get it when he's up here talking to Martinez or something."

A new voice broke in. "The fact that neither of you know who wrote Great Expectations without asking says you're long past help anyway."

That was all the confirmation he needed.

Henry disposed of his so-called tea, and made his way back down to his office. He had a plan.

* * *

Jo was two coffees deep into examining Paul Wegner's very lucrative, advantageous finance history. A third cup was in her hand when she returned to her desk and found a note. A note, inside an envelope, addressed to her and sealed twice. She recognized Henry's handwriting, assuming this was his version of texting.

The content of the note—simply Meet me on the roof at 10:20—gave way to more questions than answers. She decided to humor him for the time being.

When Jo reached the roof three minutes past the allotted meeting time (the elevators were running slowly) Henry was already there, leaning against the railing.

"Henry, how do you even have access to the roof?"

"I have a proposal for you, Detective." Henry's mouth was pulled in a tight smile, his eyes playful. He looked like he was enjoying himself.

"Is there a reason this conversation couldn't have taken place about twenty stories below us? At my desk?"

Henry darted a look around the roof, then whispered, conspiratorially, "There are too many people who could overhear."

Jo sighed. She really did work with complete children. "I think you're getting a little carried away with the 007 here. Would you like me to tap out my responses in Morse Code? Maybe use a laser beam?"

Henry carried on, unfazed. "I have come to the conclusion that all these inquiries I've received over the past couple of days are the result of a video game. I heard someone call it, Trivia Cracked, I believe?"

"Oh, Henry." She closed her eyes briefly. "They don't mean anything by it. It's just a stupid game, and people thought it would be a great idea to use you for answers."

"I'm not offended. If they had just told me what they wanted I would have answered them. You should have seen Lucas yesterday—he was practically ready to run out the door because he knew I was on to him. Honestly, I don't care in the slightest."

"Then what's with all the secrecy? And this 'proposal?'" Jo was tempted to throw up air quotes on that one, but decided that would only draw out Henry's dramatics.

"Do you have this game on your phone?"

"...Yes. I haven't used it much, but it's downloaded."

"And you can play against Lucas and Detective Hanson and the others?" Henry's grin grew wider and wider with each passing moment.

Jo was beginning to catch on now. "Sure. I'll just tell them that their enthusiasm has gotten me into it. You suggesting sabotage, agent?"

"And deception. We'll beat them before they even realize what's happening."

* * *

Hanson knew Jo was smart. Far smarter than him, at the very least. But six games in a row? Six? That was pushing it. When Jo had finally come around to playing Trivia Crack regularly he'd expected to win some, lose some, but she was blowing him out of the water. Hanson had actually thought he'd had a chance in their most recent game. He'd happened to get a chance for two crowns in a row when Henry was by his desk, explaining something about fungus. Then the Doc had gotten the history question wrong. Hanson hadn't thought he'd ever see the day. Jo sweeped in with another three characters and the game was done. Again.

"Damnit, Hanson. Your partner is incredible at this game." Leheay had been stopping by every two hours to complain about another loss himself, and Hanson had overheard a few others discussing the problem over lunch.

"Well, it sure isn't helping me any. She's beaten me more than any of you. Oh, and you know our advantage? Gave me the wrong answer earlier—that was a first."

Leheay froze. "Wait, he told you wrong too?"

"Yeah, wrong date for some country's independence. I could tell he wasn't sure because the first year he said wasn't even one of the options."

"I asked him what scientist came up with the periodic table, and it was the same deal. I guess he doesn't know everything."

Hanson leaned back in his chair. "Maybe…" Or maybe it was something else. From the beginning Jo had been vehemently against using Henry for the game, but it was looking more and more like that was the case. "I'm gonna go talk to Lucas."

He didn't find Lucas in the morgue. What he did find was Jo and Henry sitting in Henry's office, huddled around Jo's phone. They weren't surprised to see Hanson.

"Detective, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Henry asked casually.

"Yeah, yeah, you can cut the act." Hanson glanced between his colleagues. "You two were in on this together? All day?"

"Not just all day," Jo answered. "About the past four days. And you're just noticing now?" Jo grinned at him.

"Hey, at least I figured it out at all. Everyone else upstairs still has their head spinning. But I knew you were devious enough."

Henry shrugged. "It was your own doing. If you had just asked me in the first place, I would have helped you." He turned to Jo. "I guess our fun is over then…"

"Now hold up." Hanson checked behind him to make sure the rest of the morgue was still empty. "I know. But no one else does. How about we make a deal? Us three versus everyone else?"

Henry and Jo stared at each other. Henry titled his head and widened his eyes. Jo nodded back.

"Deal."

* * *

 **A/N: I apparently made Henry a huge tea snob. Oh well—it fits. I also decided that Abe was massively into all those spy/James Bond movies when he was a teenager and young adult, and made Henry watch them. Henry hated them at first, but now he looks back on those memories with Abe fondly, and is sometimes a huge, dramatic dork because of it.**


End file.
